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THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. 

Vol. I. September 1836. No. 2. 

APPEAL 



CHRISTIAN WOMEN OF THE SOUTH, 

BY A. E. GRIMKE. 
U 

BEVISED AND CORRECTED. 

" Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not within thyself that thou shall 
" escape in the king's house more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace 
" at fhis time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to tlie Jews from anothei 
' place : but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed : and who knoweth whether thou 
" art come to the kingdom for such a time as this. And Esther bade tliem return Mordecai 
" this answer ; — and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to law, and if I perish, 
"I perish." Esther IV. 13— 16. 

Respected Friends, 

It is because I feel a deep and tender interest in your present and 
eternal welfare that I am willing thus publicly to address you. Some 
of you have loved me as a relative, and some have felt bound to me 
m Christian sympathy, and Gospel fellowship ; and even when com- 
pelled by a strong sense of duty, to break those outward bonds of 
union which bound us together as members of the same community, 
and members of the same religious denomination, you were generous 
enough to give me credit, for sincerity as a Christian, though you 
believed I had been most strangely deceived. I thanked you then 
for your kindness, and I ask you 7ioio, for the sake of lormer confi- 
dence, and former friendship, to read the following pages in the spirit 
of calm investigation and fervent prayer. It is because you have 
known me, that I write thus unto you. 

But there are other Christian women scattered over the Southern 
States, of whom a very large number have never seen me, and 
never heard my name, and feel 7io personal interest whatever in me. 
But I feel an interest in yoii, as branches of the same vine from whose 
root I daily draw the principle of spiritual vitality — Yes ! Sisters 
in Christ I feel an interest in yoic, and often has the secret prayer 
arisen on your behalf. Lord " open thou their eyes that they may see 
wondrous things out of thy Law" — It is then, because I do feel and 
do pray for you, that I thus address you upon a subject about which 
of all others, perhaps you would rather not hear any thing ; but, 
" would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly, and in- 
deed bear with me, for I am jealous over you with godly jealousy." 
Be not afraid then to read my appeal ; it is not written in the heat of 
passion or prejudice, but in that solemn calmness which is the result 
of conviction and duty. It is true, I am going to tell you unwel- 
come truths, but I mean to speak those truths in love, and remember 

PosTAGs. — Tliis periodical contains four and a half sheets. Postage under 100 
miles, 6 3-4 cents ; over 100 miles, 11 1-4 cents.."' 

53" Picase read and circulate. <rCl({ 




i^ollected se!- 






Solomon says, " faithful are the icoimds of a friend." I do not oe- 
lieve the time has yet come when Chrislian wumcn " will not endure 
sound doctrine," even on the subject of Slavery, if it is spoken to 
them in tenderness and love, therefore I now address you. 

To all of you then, known or unknown, relatives or strangers, (for 
jou are all one in Christ,) I would speak. I have felt for you at 'his 
time, when unwelcome light is pouring in upon the world on the 
subject of slavery ; light which even Christians would exclude, if 
they could, from our country, or at any rate from the southern por- 
tion of it, saying, as its rays strike the rock bound coasts of New 
England and scatter their warmth and radiance over her hills end 
valleys, and from thence travel onward over the Palisades of the 
Hudson, and down the soft flowing waters of the Delaware and 
gild the waves of the Potomac, " hitherto shalt thou come and no 
further ;" I know that even professors of His name who has been 
emphatically called the " Light of the world" would, if they could, 
build a wall of adamant around the Southern States whose top might 
reach unto heaven, in order to shut out the light which is bounding 
from mountain to mountain and from the hills to the plains and val- 
leys beneath, through the vast extent of our Northern States. But 
believe me, when I tell you, their attempts will be as utterly fruit- 
less as were the efforts of the builders of Babel ; and why? Because 
moral, like natural light, is so extremely subtle in its nature as to 
overleap all human barriers, and laugh at the puny efforts of man to 
control it. All the excuses and palliations of this system must inevi- 
tably be swept away, just as other "refuges of lies" have been, by 
the irresistible torrent of a rectified public opinion. " The supporters 
of the slave system," says Jonathan Dymond in his admirable work 
on the Principles of Morality, " will hereafter be regarded with the same 
public feehng, as he who was an advocate for the slave trade noiv es." 
It will be, and that very soon, clearly perceived and fully acknowl- 
edged by all the virtuous and the candid, that in principle it is as 
sinful to hold a human being in bondage who has been born in 
Carolina, as one who has been born in Africa. All that sophistry 
of argument which lias been employed to prove, that although it is 
sinful to send to Africa to procure men and women as slaves, who 
have never been in slavery, that still, it is not sinful to keep those in 
bondage who have come down by inheritance, will be utterly over- 
thrown. We must come back to the good old doctrine of our fore- 
fathers who declared to the world, " this self evident truth that all 
men are created equal, and that they have certain incdienahle rights 
among which are life, liberty^ and the pursuit of happiness." It is 
even a greater absurdity to suppose a man can be legally born a 
slave under our free Republican Government, than under the petty 
despotisms of barbarian Africa. If then, we have no right to enslave 
an African, surely we can have none to enslave an American ; if it is 
a self evident truth that all men, every where and of every color are 
eorn equal, and have an inalienable right to liberty, then it is equally 
true that ito man can be bora a slave, and no man can ever rightfully 



3 

be reduced to involuntary bondage and held as a slavt», however fafr 
inay be the cJaim of his master or mistress through wills and title-deeds. 
But after all, it may be said, our fathers were certainly mistaken, for 
the Bible sanctions Slavery, and that is the highest authority. Now 
the Bible is my ultimate appeal in all matters of faith and practice, 
and it is to this test I am anxious to bring the subject at issue be- 
tween us. Let us then begin with Adam and examine the charter 
of privileges whicli was given to him. " Have dominion over the fish 
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every hving thing 
that moveth upon the earth." In the eighth Psalm we have a still 
fuller description of this charter which through Adam was given to all 
mankind. " Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of 
thy hands ; thou hast put all things under his feet. All sheep and 
oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, the fish of 
the sea, and whatsoever pusseth through the paths of the seas." 
And after the flood when this charter of human rights was renewed, 
we find no additional power vested in man. *' And the fear of you 
and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and 
every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the earth, and 
upon all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they deHvcred." 
In this charter, although the different kinds of irrational beings are 
so particularly enumerated, and supreme dominion over all of them is 
granted, yet man is never vested with this dominion over his fellow 
man ; he was never told that any of the human species were put 
under his feet ; it was only all things, and nian, who was created in 
the image of his Maker, never can properly be termed a thing, though 
the laws of Slave States do call him "a chattel personal;" JSIan 
then, I assert never was put under the feet of man, by that first charter 
of human rights which was given by God, to the Fathers of the Ante- 
diluvian and Postdiluvian worlds, therefore this doctrine of equahty 
is based on the Bible. « 

But it may be argued, that in the very chapter of Genesis from 
which I have last quoted, will be found the curse pronounced upon 
Canaan, by which his posterity was consigned to servitude under his 
brothers Shem and Japheth. I know this prophecy was uttered, and 
was most fearfully and wonderfully fulfilled, through the immediate 
descendants of Canaan, i. e. the Canaanites, and I do not know but 
it has been through all the children of Ham, but I do know that 
prophecy does not tell us what ought to be, but what actually does 
take place, ages after it has been delivered, and that if we justify 
America for enslaving the children of Africa, we must also justify 
Egypt for reducing the children of Israel to bondage, for the latter 
was foretold as explicitly as the former. I am well aware that pro- 
phecy has often been urged as an excuse for Slavery, but be not 
deceived, the fulfilment of prophecy will not cover one sin in the awful 
day of account. Hear what our Saviour says on this subject ; " it 
must needs be that oflfences come, but woe unto that man through 
ivhom'theij come" — Witness some fulfilmenl of this declaration in the 
tremendous destruction of Jerusalem, occasioned by that most nefa- 



nous of all crimes tne crucifixion of the Son of God. Did the fact 
of that event having been foretold, exculpate the Jews from sin in 
perpetrating it ; No — for hear what the Apostle Peter says to them 
ou this subject, " Him being delivered by the determinate counsel 
and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have 
crucified and slain." Other striking instances might be adduced, but 
these will suffice. 

But it has been urged that the patriarchs held slaves, and therefore, 
.'slavery is right. Do you really believe that patriarchal servitude was 
like American slavery 1 Can you believe it 1 If so, read the history of 
ihese primitive fathers of the church and be undeceived. Look at 
Abraham, though so great a man, going to the herd himself and 
fetching a calf from thence and serving it up with his own hands, for 
the entertainment of his guests. Look at Sarah, that princess as her 
name signifies, baking cakes upon the hearth. If the servants they 
had were like Southern slaves, would they have performed such 
comparatively menial offices for themselves ? Hear too the plaintive 
lamentation of Abraham when he feared he should have no son to 
bear his name down to posterity. " Behold thou hast given me no 
seed, &c, one born in my house is mine heir." From this it appears 
that one of his servants was to inherit his immense estate. Is this 
like Southern slavery 1 I leave it to your own good sense and candor 
to decide. Besides, such was the footing upon which Abraham was 
with his servants, that he trusted them with arms. Are slaveholders 
willing to put swords and pistols into the hands of their slaves ? He 
was as a father among his servants ; what are planters and masters 
generally among theirs ? When the institution of circumcision was 
established, Abraham was commanded thus ; " He that is eight days 
old shall be circumcised among you, every man-child in your gene- 
rations ; he that is born in the house, or bought with money of 
any stranger which is not of thy seed." And to render this com- 
mand with regard to his servants still more impressive it is repeated 
in the very next verse ; and herein we may perceive the great care 
Avhich v/as taken by God to guard the rights of servants even under 
this " dark dispensation." What too was the testimony given to the 
faithfulness of this eminent patriarch. " For I know him that he will 
command his children and his household after him, and they shall 
keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment." IVow my 
dear friends many of you believe that circumcision has been super- 
seded by baptism in the Church ; ^re you careful to have all that 
are born in your house or bought with money of any stranger, bap- 
tized? Are yon as faithful as Abraham to command your household to 
keep the umy of the Lordl I leave it to your own consciences to de- 
cide. Was patriarchal servitude then like American Slavery? 

But I shall be told, God sanctioned Slavery, yea commanded Sla- 
very under the Jewish Dispensation. Let us examine this subject 
calmly and prayerfiiUy. I admit that a species of servitude was per- 
mitted fo the Jews, but in studying the subject I have been struck 
with \ve:ider and admiration at ])erceiving how carefully the servant 



was guarded from violence, injustice, and wrong. I will first inform 
you how these servants became servants, for 1 think this a very im- 
portant part of our subject. From consulting Home, Calmet, and 
the Bible, I find there were six difterent ways by which the Hebrews 
became servants legally. 

'1. A Hebrew, whose fntlier was still alive, and who on that account 
had not inherited his patrimonial estate, might sell himself, i. e., his 
services, for six years, in which case he received the puichase money 
himself. Ex. xxi, 2. 

2. A father might sell his children as servants, i. e., his daughters, 
in which circumstance it was understood the daughter was to be the 
wife or daughter-in-law of the man who bought her, and the father 
received the price. In other words, Jewish women were sold as white 
women were in the first settlement of Yirginia^as wives, not as slaves. 
Ex. xxi, 7 — 11. 

3. Thieves not able to make restitufion for their thefts, were sold 
for the benefit of the injured person. Ex. xxii, 3. 

4. They might be born in servitude. Ex. xxi, 4. 

5. If reduced to extreme poverty, a Hebrew might sell himself; 
but in such a case he was to serve, not as a bondsman, whose term 
of service was only six years, nor was he to serve as a hired servant, 
who received his wages every evening, nor yet as a sojourner or 
temporary resident in the family, but he was to serve his master until 
the year of Jubilee.* Lev. xxv, 39, 40. 

w6. If a Hebrew had sold himself to a rich Gentile, he might be 
redeemed by one of his brethren at any time the money was offered ; 
and he who redeemed him, was not to take advantage of the favor 
thus conferred, and rule over him with rigor. Lev. xxv, 47 — 55. 

Before going into an examination of the laws by which these servants 
were protected, I would just ask whether American slaves have become 
slaves in any of the ways in which the Hebrews became servants. 
Did they sell themselves into slavery and receive the purchase money 
into their own hands ? No I No! Did they steal the property of 
another, and were they sold to make restitution for their crimes 1 
No! Did their present -masters, as an act of kindness, redeem them 
from some heathen tyrant to whom they had sold themselves in the 
dark hour of adversity 1 No ! Were they born in slavery ? No ! 
No ! Not according to Jewish Law, for the servants who were born 
in servitude among them, were born of parents who had sold them- 
selves : Ex. xxi, 4 ; Lev. xxv, 39, 40. Were the female slaves of 
the South sold by their fathers'? How shall I answer this question? 
Thousands and tens of thousands never were, their fathers never have 
received the poor compensation of silver or gold for the tears and 
toils, the suffering, and anguish, and hopeless bondage of i/ieir daugh- 
ters. They labor day by day, and year by year, side by side, ia 

* If the reader will leave oat the italicised words — But and And, in the 40th 
verse — he M'ill find that I am i'liUy authorized in the meaning I have attached to it. 
But and And are not in the original Hebrew ; have been introduced by the trans- 
lators, and entirely destroy the true sense of the passage. 



6 

the same field, if haply their daughters are permitted to remain on 
the same plantation with them, instead of being, as they often are, 
separated from their parents and sold into distant states, never again 
to meet on earth. But do the fathers of the Sovth ever aell their 
daughters ? My heart beats, and my hand trembles, as I write the 
awful affirmative. Yes ! The fathers of this Christian land often sell 
their daughters, not as Jewish parents did, to be the wives and daugh- 
ters-in-law of the men who buy them, but to be the abject slaves of 
petty tyrants and irresponsible masters. Is it not so, my friends 1 I 
leave it to your own candor to corroborate my assertion. Southern 
slaves then have not become slaves in any of the six diflerent ways 
in which Hebrews became servants, and I hesitate not to say that 
American masters cannot according to Jewish law substantiate their 
claim to the men, women, or children they now hold in bondage. 

But there was one way in which a Jew might illegally be reduced 
to servitude ; it was this, he might be stolen and afterwards sold as a 
slave, as was Joseph. To guard most effectually against this dread- 
ful crime of manstealing, God enacted this severe law, " He that 
stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall 
surely be put to death." And again, " If a man be found stealing 
any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise 
of him, or selleth him ; then that thief shall die ; and thou shalt put 
away evil from among you." Deut. xxiv, 7. As I have tried Amer- 
ican Slavery by legal Hebrew servitude, and found, (to your surprise, 
perhaps,) that Jewish law cannot justify the slaveholder's claim, let 
us now try it by illegal Hebrew bondage. Have the Southern slaves 
then been stolen ? If they did not sell themselves into bondage ; if 
they were not sold as thieves ; if they were not redeemed from a 
heathen master to whom they had sold themselves ; if they were not 
born in servitude according to Hebrew law ; and if the females were 
not sold by their fathers as wives and daughters-in-law to those who 
purchased them ; tlien what shall we say of them 1 what can we say 
of them ? but that according to Hebrew Law they have been stolen. 

But I shall be told that the Jews had other servants who were 
absolute slaves. Let us look a little into this also. They had other 
servants who were procured from the heathen. 

Bondmen and bondmaids might be bought of the heathen round 
about them. Lev. xxv, 44. 

I will now try the right of the southern planter by the claims of 
Hebrew masters to their heathen servants. Were the southern slaves 
bought from the heathen 1 No ! For surely, no one will now vin- 
dicate the slave-trade so far as to assert that slaves were bought from 
the heathen who were obtained by that system of piracy. The only 
excuse for holding southern slaves is that they were born in slavery, 
but we have seen that they were not born in servitude as Jewish serv- 
ants were, and that the children of heathen servants were not legally 
subjected to bondage, even under the Mosaic Law. How then have 
the slaves of the South been obtained 1 

I will next proceed to an exajnination of those laws which were en- 



acted in order to protect the Hebrew and the Heathen servant ; for I wish 
yon to nnderstand that both were protected by Him, of whom it is said 
" his mercies are over all his works." I will first speak of those which 
secured the rights of Hebrew servants. This code was headed tlius: 

1. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, but shalt fear thy God. 

2. If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the 
seventh year lie shall go out free for nothing. Ex. xxi, 2. And when 
thou senilest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away 
empty : Thou shalt furnish him liberall-j out of thy flock and out of thy 
floor, and out of thy wine-press : of that wherewith the Lord thy God 
hath blessed thee, shalt thou give unto him. Deut. xv, 13, 14. 

3. If he come in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were 
married, then his wife shall go out with him. Ex. xxi, 3. 

4. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons 
and daughters, the wife and her children shall be his master's, and he 
shall go out by himself. Ex. xxi, 4. 

5. If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and 
my children ; I will not go out free ; then his master shall bring liini 
unto the Judges, and he shall bring him to the door, or unto the door- 
post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he 
shall serve him /or ever. Ex. xxi, 5, 6. 

6. If a man smite the eve of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that 
it perish, he shall let him go jree for his eye's sake. And if he smite 
out his man servant's tooth or his maid servant's tooth, he shall let 
him go free for his tooth's sake. Ex. xxi, 26, 27. 

7. On the Sabbath, rest was secured to servants by the fourth com- 
mandment. Ex. XX, 10. 

8. Servants were permitted to unite with their masters three times 
in every year in celebrating the Passover, the feast of Weeks, and the 
feast of Tabernacles ; every male throughout the land was to appear 
before the Lord at Jerusalem with a gift ; here the bond and the free 
stood on common ground. Deut. xvi. 

9. If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die 
under his hand, he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he 
continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money. 
Ex. xxi, 20, 21. 

From these laws we learn, that one class of Hebrew men servants 
were hound to serve their masters only six years, unless their attach- 
ment to their employers, their wives and children, should induce them 
to wish to remain in servitude, in which case, in order to prevent the 
possibility of deception on the part of the master, the servant was first 
taken before the magistrate, where he openly declared his intention of 
continuing in his master's service, (probably a public register was kept 
of such,) he was then conducted to the door of the house, (in warm 
climates doors are thrown open,) and there his ear was publicly bored, 
and by submitting to this operation, he testified his willingness to serve 
him in subserviency to the law of God ; for let it be remembered, that 
the door-post was covered with the precepts of that law. Deut. vi, 9, 
xi, 20 : /or e«cr, i. e., during his life, for Jewish Rabbins, who must 
have understood Jewish slavery (as it is called), "affirm that servants 
were set free at the death of their masters, and did not descend to their 
heirr •" or that he was to serve him until the year of Jubilee, when all 
servants were set at liberty. The other class, when they first sold 
themselves, agreed to remain until the year of Jubilee. To protect 
servants from violence, it was ordained, that if a master struck out 
the tooth or destroyed the eye of a servant, that servant immediately 



8- 

became/ree, for such an act of violence evidently showed he was unfit 
to possess the power of a master, and therefore that power was taken 
from him. All servants enjoyed the rest of the Sabbath, and partook 
of the privileges and festivities of the three great Jewish Feasts ; and 
if a servant died under the infliction of chastisement, his master was 
surely to be punished. As a tooth for a tooth and life for life was the 
Jewish law, of course he was punished with death. I know that great 
stress has been laid upon the following verse : " Notwithstanding, if he 
continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." 

Slaveholders, and the apologists of slavery, have eagerly seized 
upon this little passage of Scripture, and held it up as the masters' 
Magna Charta, by which they were licensed by God himself to commit 
the greatest outrages upon the defenceless victims of their oppression. 
But, my friends, was it designed to be so 1 If our Heavenly Father 
would protect by law the ei/e and the tooth of a Hebrew servant, can 
we for a moment believe that he would abandon that same servant to 
the brutal rage of a master who would destroy even life itself? Let us 
then examine this passage with the help of the context. In the 18th 
and 19th verses we have a law which was made {or freemen who strove 
together. Here we find, that if one man smote another, so that he 
died not, but only kept his bed from being disabled, and he rose again 
and walked abroad upon his staff, then he was to be paid for the loss 
of his time, and all the expenses of his sickness were to be borne by 
the man who smote him. The freeman's time was his own, and there- 
fore he was to be remunerated for the loss of it. But not so with the 
servant, whose time was, as it were, the money of his master, because 
he had already paid for it : If he continued a day or two after being 
struck, to keep his bed in consequence of any wound received, then 
his lost time was not to be paid for, because it was not his own, but his 
master's, who had already paid him for it. The loss of his time was 
the master'' s loss, and not the servant's. This explanation is confirmed 
by the fact, that the Hebrew word translated continue, nieans " to 
stand still ;" i. e., to be unable to go out about his master's work. 

Here then we find this stronghold of slavery completely demolished. 
Instead of its being a license to inflict such chastisement upon a servant 
as to cause even death itself, it is in fact a law merely to provide that 
a man should not be required to pay his servant twice over for his time. 
It is altogether an unfounded assumption on the part of the slaveholder, 
that this servant died after a day or two ; the text does not say so, and 
I contend that he got ivell after a day or two, just as the man mentioned 
in the 19th verse recovered from the effects of the blows he received. 
The cases are completely parallel, and the first law throws great light 
on the second. This explanation is far more consonant with the cha- 
racter of God, and were it not that our vision has been so completely 
darkened by the existence of slavery in our country, we never could 
so far have dishonored Him as to have supposed that He sanctioned 
the murder of a servant ; although slaveholding legislators might legal- 
ize the killing of a slave in four diflferent ways. — {Sti-oud's Sketch of 
Slave Laws.) 

But I pass on now to the consideration of how the female Jewish 
servants were protected by law. 

1. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, 
then shall he let her be redeemed : to sell her unto another nation he 
shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. 

2. If he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after 
the manner" of daughters. 



d 

3. If h«"> take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duly 
of marriage, shnll he not diminish. 

4. If he do not these three unto her, then sliall she go out//-ee with- 
out money. 

On these laws I will give you Calmet's remarks ; " A fatiier could 
not sell his daughter as a slave, according to the Rahbins, uiUil she 
was at the age of puberty, and unless he were reduced to the utmost 
indigence. Besides, when a master bought an Israeiitish girl, it was 
always with the presumption that he would take her to wife. Hence 
Muses adds, ' if she please not her master, and he docs not think fit 
to marry her, he shall set her at liberty,' or according to the Hebrew, 
* he shall let her be redeemed.' ' To sell her to another nation he shall 
have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her ;' as to the 
engagement implied, at least of taking her to wife. ' If he have be- 
trothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her af'er the manner of 
daughters;' i. e., he shall lake care lliat his son uses her as his wife, 
that he does not despise or maltreat her. If he make his soii marry 
another wife, he shall give her her dowry, her clothes, and compensation 
for her virginity ; if he does none of these three, she shall go out free 
without monej-." Thus were the rights of female servants carefully 
secured by law under the Jewish Dispensation ; and now I would ask, 
are the rights of female slaves at the South thus secured ? Are they 
sold only as wives and daughters-in-law, and when not treated as such, 
are they allowed to go out free? No ! They have all nut only been 
illegally obtained as servants according to Hebrew l;iv.', but they are 
also illegally held in bondage. Masters at tJie South and West have 
all forfeited their claims, {if they ever had any,) to their female slaves. 

We come now to examine the case of those servants who were 
" of the heathen round about ;" Were they left entirely unprotected by 
law? Home, in speaking of the law, " Thou shall not rule over him 
with rigor, but shall fear tliy God," remarks, " this lavv^. Lev. xxv, 43, 
it is true, speaks expressly of slaves who were of Hebrew descent; 
but as alien borri slaves were ingrafted into the Hebrew Church by 
circumcision, there is no doubt but that it applied to all shives :" if so, 
then we may reasonably suppose that the other protective laws ex- 
tended to them also ; and that the only difference between Hebrew 
and Heathen servants lay in this, that the former served but six years, 
unless they chose to remain longer, and were always freed at the 
death of their masters ; whereas, the latter served until the year of 
Jubilee, though that might include a period of forty-nine years, — and 
were left from father to son. 

There are, however, two other laws w^hich I have not yet noticed. 
The one effectually prevented all involuntary servitude, and the other 
completely abolished Jewish servitude every fifty years. They were 
equally operative upon the Heathen and the Hebrew. 

1. " Thou shall not deliver unto his master the servant that is escaped 
from his master unto thee. He. shall dwell with thee, even among 
you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it 
liketh him best : thou shall not oppress him." Deut. xxiii, 15, 16. 

2. " And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim Liberty 
throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a 
jubilee unto you." Lev. xxv, 10. 

Here, then, we see that by this first law, the door of Freedom, was 
opened luide to every servant who had any cause whatever for complaint; 
if he was unhappy with his master, all he had to do was to leave him, 
and no man had a right to deliver him back to him again, and not only 
so, but the absconded servant was to choose where he should live, 

2 



10 

and no Jew was permitted to oppress him. He left his master judl 
as our Northern servants leave us ; we have no power to con)pel them 
to remain with us, and no man has any right to oppress them ; they 
go and dwell in that place where it chooseth them, and live just where 
tliey like. Is it so at the South 1 Is the poor runaway slave protect- 
ed by law from the violence of that master whose oppression and 
cruelty has driven him from his plantation or his house ] No ! no ! 
Even the free states of the North are compelled to deliver unto his 
master the servant that is escaped from his master into them. By 
human law, under the Christian Dispensation, in the nineteenth century 
we are commanded to do, what God more than three thousand years 
ago, under the JMosaic Dispensation, positively commanded the Jews 
not to do. In the wide domain even of our free states, there is not 
one city of refuge for the poor runaway fugitive ; not one spot upon 
which he can stand and say, I am a free man — I am protected in my 
rights as a man, by the strong arm of the law ; no ! not one. How 
long the North will thus shake hands with the South in sin, I know 
not. How long she will stand by like the persecutor Saul, cotisenling 
unto the death of Stephen, and keeping the raiment of them that slew 
him. I know not ; but one thing I do know, the guilt of the JYorlh 
is increasing in a tremendous ratio as hght is pouring in upon her on 
the subject and the sin of slavery. As the sun of righteousness 
climbs higher and higher in the moral heavens, she will stand still 
more and more abashed as the query is thundered down into her ear, 
" Who hath required this at thy hand?" It will be found no excuse then 
that the Constitution of our country required that persons bound to ser- 
vice escaping from their masters should be delivered up ; no more 
excuse than was the reason which Adam assigned for eating the for- 
bidden fruit. He was condemned and punished because he hearkened 
to the voice of his v'ife, rather than to the command of his Maker ; and 
we shall assuredly be condemned and punished for obeying JVIan rather 
than God, if we do not speedily repent and bring forth fruits meet for 
repentance. Yea, are we not receiving chastisement even noiv 1 

But by the second of these laws a still more astonishing fact is 
disclosed. If the first effectually prevented all involuntary servitude, 
the last absolutely forbade even voluntary servitude being perpetual. 
On the great day of atonement every fiftieth year the Jubilee trumpet 
was sounded throughout the land of Judea, and Liberty was proclaim- 
ed to all the inhabitants thereof. I will not say that the servants' 
chains fell off and their manacles were burst, for there is no evidence 
that Jewish servants ever felt the weight of iron chains, and collars, 
and handcuffs ; but I do say that even the man who had voluntarily 
sold himself and the heathen who had been sold to a Hebrew master, 
were set free, the one as well as the other. This law was evidently 
designed to prevent the oppression of the poor, and the possibility of 
Buch a thing as perpetual servitude existing among them. 

Where, then, I would ask, is the warrant, the justification, or the 
palliation of American oluvtiy iVoiii Hebrew servitude? How many 
of liie jjoulheni sluvts would now be in bondage according to the 



n 

laws of Moses ; Not one. You may observe that I have carefully 
avoided using the term slavery when speakinu; of Jewish servitude ; 
and simply for this reason, that no svch thing existed among that 
people ; the word translated servant does not mean slave, it is the 
same that is applied to Abraham, to Moses, to Elisha and the pro- 
phets generally. Slavery then never existed under the Jewish Dis- 
pensation at all, and I cannot but regard it as an aspersion on the 
character of Him who is "glorious in Hilinrss" for any one to assert 
that " God sanctioned, yea co)i:manded slavery under the old dispen- 
sation." I would fain lift my feeble voice to vindicate Jehovah's 
character from so foul a slander. If slaveholders are determined to 
hold slaves as long as fhey can, let them not dare to say that the 
God of mercy and of truth ever sanctioned such a system of ciiielty 
and wrong. It is blasphemy against Ilim. 

We have seen that the code of laws framed by Moses with regard 
to servants was designed to protect them as men and ivomen, to secure 
to them their rights as human beings, to guard them from oppression 
and defend them from violence of every kind. Let us now turn to 
the Slave laws of the South and West and enxmine them too. I will 
give you the substance only, because I fear I shall tresspass too 
much on your time, were I to quote them at length. 

1. Slavery is hereditary and perpetual, to the last moment of the 
slave's earthly existence, and to all his descendants to the latest pos- 
terity. 

2. The labor of the slave is compulsory and uncompensated ; 
while the kind of labor, the amount of toil, the time allowed for rest, 
are dictated solely by the master. No bargain is made, no wages 
given. A pure despotism governs the human brute ; and even his 
covering and provender, both as to quantity and quality, depend en- 
tirely on the master's discretion.* 

3. The slave being considered a personal chattel may be sold or 
pledged, or leased at the will of his master. He may be exchanged 
for marketable commodities, or taken in execution for the debts or 
taxes either of a living or dead master. Sold at auction, either in- 
dividually, or in lots to suit the purchaser, he may remain with his 
family, or be separated from them for ever. 

4. Slaves can make no contracts and have no legal right to any 
property, real or personal. Their own honest earnings aiid the lega- 
cies of friends belong in point of law to their masters. 

6. Neither a slave nor a free colored person can be a witness 

♦ There are laws in some of the slave states, limiting the labor which the master 
may require of the slave to fourteen hours daily. In some of the states there are 
laws requiring the masters to furnish a certain amount of food and clothing, as for 
instance, one quart of com per day, or one pecle per week, or one biisfiel per month, 
and "one linen shirt and pantaloons for tlie summec, and a linen shirt and woolen 
great coat and pantaloons for the winter," &c. But " still," to use the language of 
Judge Stroud " the slave is entirely imder tlie control of his master, — is unprovided 
with a protector, — and, especially as he cannot be a witness or make complaint m 
any known mode against his master, the apparent object of these laws may always 
be defeated." Ed. 



12 

Rr'ainst any white, or fre? person, in a cov.rt of justice, however atro- 
cious may have been the crimes they have seen him coniniit, if such 
testimony would be for the benefit of a slave ; but they may give tes- 
timony cif^ainst a fellow slave, or free colored man, even in cases 
afiecting life, if the master is to reap the advantage of it. 

6. The slave may be punished at his master's discretion — ^without 
trial — without any means of legal redress ; whether his offence bo 
real or imaginary ; and the master can transfer the same despotic 
power to any person or persons, he may choose to appoint. 

7. The slave is not allowed to resist any free man under any cir- 
cumstances, his only safety consists in the fact that his owner may 
bring suit and recover the price of his body, in case his life is taken, 
or his limbs rendered unfit for labor. 

8. Slaves cannot redeem themse4ves. or obtain a change of mas- 
ters, though cruel treatment may have rendered such a change ne- 
cessary for iheir personal safety. 

9. The slave is entirely unprotected in his domestic relations. 

10. The laws greatly obstruct the manumission of slaves, even 
where the master is willing to enfranchise them. 

11. The operation of the laws tends to deprive sbves of religious 
instruction and consolation. 

12. The whole power of the laws is exerted to keep slaves in a 
state of the lowest iguoran'^e. 

13. There is in this country a monstrous inequality of law and 
right. What is a trifling fault in the white man, is considered highly 
criminal in the slave ; the same ofiences whi<'.h cost a white man a 
(gw dollars only, are punished in the negro with death. 

14. The laws operate most oppressively upon free people of color.* 
Shall I ask you now my tViend-;, to draw the parallel between Jew- 
ish servitude and American slavenj 1 No ! J'or there is no likenesx 
m the two systems ; I ask you rather to mark the contrast. The 
laws of Moses protected servanis in their rights as wen and women, 
guarded them from oppression and defended them from wrong. The 
Code Noir of the South robs the slave of all his rights as a man, re- 
duces him to a chattel personal, and defends the master in the exer- 
rise of the most unnatural and unwarantable power over his slave. ~ 
They each bear the impress of the hand which formed them. The 
attributes of justice and mercy are shadowed out in the Hebrew 
rode ; those of injustice and cruelty, in the Code Noir of America. 
Truly it was wise in the slaveholders of the South to declare then 
slaves to be " chattels personal ;" tor before they could be robbed 
nf wages, wives, chidren, and friends, it was ab^Jolutely necessary to 
deny they were human beings, it is wise in them, to keep them in 
«bject ignorance, for the strong man armed must be bound before we 
can spoil his house — the powerful intellect of man must be bound 
down y, ith ttie iron chains of nescience before we can rob him of his 
eights aj a man ; we must reduce him to a thing before we can claim 

Sec Mrs. Chilli'* ApiH'-nl. Ch.ip. H. 



Id 

the right to set our feet upon his neck, because it was only a2l thingi 
which were originally put under the feet of 7nan by the Almighty and 
Beneficent Father of all, who has declared himself to be no respecter 
of persons, whether red, white, or black. 

But some have even said that Jesus Christ did not condemn slavery. 
To this I reply, that our Holy Redeemer lived and preached among 
the Jews only. The laws which Moses had enacted fifteen hundred 
years previous to his appearance among them, had never been annulled, 
and these laws protected every servant in Palestine. That he saw 
nothing of perpetual servitude is certain from the simple declaration 
made by himself in John, viii, 35. " The servant abideth not in the 
house for ever, the son abideth ever." If then He did not condemn 
Jewish temporary servitude, this does not prove that he would not 
have condemned such a monstrous system as that of American slavery, 
if that had existed among them. But did not Jesus condemn slavery 1 
Let us examine some of his precepts. " Whatsoever ye would that 
men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'''' Let every slaveholder 
apply these queries to his own heart ; Am / willing to be a slave — Am 
/ willing to see my husband the slave of another — Am / willing to see 
mj' mother a slave, or my father, my ivhite sister, or my white brother? 
If not, then in holding others as slaves, I am doing what I would not 
wish to be done to me or any relative I have ; and thus have I broken 
this golden rule which was given me to walk by. 

But some slaveholders have said, " we were never in bondage to any 
man," and ilierefore the yoke of bondage would be insufferable to us, 
but slaves are accustomed to it, their backs are fitted to the burden. 
Well, I am willing to admit that you who have lived in freedom would 
find slavery even more oppressive than the poor slave does, but then 
you may try this question in another form — Am I willing to reduce 
m?/ little child to slavery 1 You know tliat if it is brought up a slave, it 
will never know any contrast between freedom and bondage ; its back 
will become fitted to the'burden just as the negro child's does — not by 
nature — but by daily, violent pressure, in the same way that the head 
of the Indian child becomes flattened by the boards in which it is 
bound. It has been justly remarked that " God never made a slave,^' he 
made man upright ; his back was not made to carry burdens as the 
slave of another, nor his neck to wear a yoke, and the man must be 
crushed within him, before his back can be fitted to the burden of per- 
petual slavery : and that his back is not fitted to it, is manifest by the 
insurrections that so often disturb the peace and security of slave- 
holding countries. Who ever heard of a rebellion of the beasts of the 
field; and why not 1 simply because they were all placed under the feet 
of man, into whose hand they were delivered ; it was originally de- 
signed that they should serve him, therefore their necks have been 
formed for the yoke, and their backs for the burden ; but not so with 
man, intellectual, immortal man ! I appeal to you, my friends, as 
niotliers ; Are you willing to enslave your children 1 You start back 
with horror and indignation at such a question. But why, if slavery 
is no wrong to those upon whom it is imposed ^ why, if, as has often 
been said, shsves are happier than their masters, freer from the caies 
and perplexities of providing for themselves and their families'? why 
not place your children in the way of being supported without your 
having the trouble to provide forthem, or they for themselves'? Do 
you not perceive that as soon as this golden rule of action is applied to 
yourselves, that you involuntarily shrink from the test ; as soon as your 
actions ai'e weighed in ihi? balance of the sanctuary, that t^ou are found 



14 

wanting ? Try yourselves by another of the Divine precepts, " Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Can we love a man as we love 
ourselves if we do, and continve to do unto him, what we would not 
wish any one to do to us 1 Look, too, at Christ's example, what does 
he say of himself, " I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." 
Can you for a moment imagine the meek and lowly, and compassionate 
Saviour, a slaveholder ? Do you not shudder at this thought as much 
as at that of his being a warrior? But why, if slavery is not sinful ? 

Again, it has been said, the Apostle Paul did not condemn slavery, 
for he sent Onesimus back to Philemon. I do not think it can be 
said he sent him back, for no coercion was made use of. Onesimus 
was not thrown into prison and then sent back in chains to his master, 
as your runaway slaves often are — this could not possibly have been 
the case, because you know Paul as a Jew, was bound to protect the 
runaway ; he had no right to send any fugitive back to his master. 
The state of the case then seems to have been this. Onesimus had 
been an unprofitable servant to Philemon and left him — he afterwards 
became converted under the Apostle's preaching, and seeing that he 
had been to blame in his conduct, and desiring by future fidelity to 
atone for past error, he wished to return, and the Apostle gave him 
the letter we now have as a recommendation to Philemon, informing 
him of the conversion of Onesimus, and entreating him as " Paul the 
aged " " to receive him, not now as a servant, but above a servant, a 
brother beloved, especially to me, but how much more unto thee, 
both in the flesh and in the Lord. If thou count me therefore as a 
partner, receive him as myself" This, then, surely cannot be forced 
into a justification of the practice of returning runaway slaves back 
to their masters, to be punished with cruel beatings and scourgings 
as they often are. Besides the word ^ouXo? here translated servant, 
is the same that is made use of in Matt, xviii, 27. Now it appears 
that this servant oiced his lord ten thousand talents ; he possessed 
property to o vast amount. And what is still more surprising, if he 
was a slave, is, that " forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord com- 
manded him to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he 
had, and payment to be made." Whoever heard of a slaveholder 
selling a slave and his family to pay himself a debt due to him from a 
slave? What would he gain by it when the slave is himself his pro. 
perty, and his wife and children also ? Onesimus could not, then, 
have been a slave, for slaves do not own their wives or children ; no, 
not even their own bodies, much less property. But again, the servi- 
tude which the apostle was accustomed to, must have been very differ- 
ent from American slavery, for he says, " the heir (or son), as long as 
he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all. 
But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father." 
From this it appears, that the means of instruction were provided for 
servants as well as children ; and indeed we know it must have been 
so among the Jews, because their servants were not permitted to 
remain in perpetual bondage, and therefore it was absolutely neces- 
sary they should be prepared to occupy higher stations in society 



15 

than those of servants. Is it so at the South, my friends? Is the 
daily bread of instruction provided for your slaves ? are their minds 
enlightened, and they gradually prepared to rise from the grade of 
menials into that of free, independent members of the state 1 Let 
your own statute book, and your own daily experience, answer these 
questions. 

If this apostle sanctioned slavery, why did he exhort masters thus 
in his epistle to the Ephesians, "and ye, masters, do the same things 
unto them (i.e. perform your duties to your servants as unto Christ, 
not unto mer))/orbearing threatening ; knowing that your master also 
is in heaven, neither is there respect of persons ivith him." And in 
Colossians, " Masters give unto your servants that which is just and 
egual, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven." Let slave- 
holders only obey these injunctions of Paul, and I am satisfied slavery 
would soon be abolished. If he thought it sinful even to threaten 
servants, surely he must have thought it sinful to flog and to beat 
them with sticks and paddles ; indeed, when delineating the character 
of a bishop, he expressly names this as one feature of it, " no striker.^' 
Let masters give unto their servants that which is just and equal, and 
all that vast system of unrequited labor would crumble into ruin. 
Yes, and if they once felt they had no right to the labor of their ser- 
vants without pay, surely they could not think they had a right to 
their wives, their children, and their own bodies. Again, how can it 
be said Paul sanctioned slavery, when, as though to put this matter 
beyond all doubt, in that black catalogue of sins enumerated in his 
first epistle to Timothy, he mentions " menstealers," which word may 
be translated " slavedealers." But you may say, we all despise slave- 
dealers as much as any one can ; they are never admitted into genteel 
or respectable society. And why not? Is it not because even you 
shrink back from the idea of associating with those who make their 
fortunes by trading in the bodies and souls of men, women, and chil- 
dren ] whose daily work it is to break human hearts, by tearing wives 
from their husbands, and children from their parents 1 But why hold 
slavedealers as despicable, if their trade is lawful and virtuous 1 and 
why despise them more than the gentlemen of fortune and standing 
who employ them as their agents 1 Why more than the professors of 
religion who barter their fellow-professors to them for gold and sdver? 
We do not despise the land agent, or the physician, or the merchant, 
and why 1 Simply because their professions are virtuous and honora- 
ble ; and if the trade of men-jobbers was honorable, you would not 
despise them either. There is no difference in principle, in Christian 
ethics, between the despised slavedealer and the Christian who buys 
slaves from, or sells slaves to him ; indeed, if slaves were not wanted 
by the respectable, the wealthy, and the religious in a community, 
there would be no slaves in that community, and of course no slave- 
dealers. It is then the Christians and the honorable men and roomen 
of the South, who are the main pillars of this grand temple built to 
Mammon and to Moloch. It is the most enlightened in every country 
who are mast to blume when any public sin u supportod by public 



19 

©pinion, hence Isaiah says, " When the Lord hath performed his 
whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, (then) I will punish 
the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his 
hio-h looks." And was it not so? Open the historical records of 
that ao-e, was not Israel carried into captivity B.C. 721, Judah B. C. 
688, and the stout heart of the heathen monarchy not punished until 
B. C. 536, fifty-two years after Judah's, and 185 years, after 
Israel's captivity, when it was overthrown by Cyrus, king of Persia I 
Hence, too, the apostle Peter says, "judgment must begin at the. 
house of God." Surely this would not be the case, if the professors of 
religion were not most rvorihij of blame. 

But it may be asked, why are they most culpable ? I will tell you, 
my friends. It is because sin is imputed to us just in proportion to 
the spiritual light we receive. Thus the prophet Amos says, in the 
name of Jehovah, " You only have I known of all the families of the 
earth : therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." Hear too 
the doctrine of our Lord on this important subject ; " The servant 
who knew his Lord's will and prepared not himself, neither did ac- 
cordoig to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes:" and why? 
•' For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; 
and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the 
more." Oh! then that the Christians of the south would ponder these 
things in t'.eir hearts, and awake to the vast responsibilities which 
rest upon them at this important crisis. 

I have thus, I think, clearly proved to you seven propositions, viz. : 
First, that slavery is contrary to the declaration of our independence. 
Second, that it is contrary to the first charter of human rights given 
to Adam, and renewed to Noah. Third, that the fact of slavery 
having been the subject of prophecy, furnishes no excuse whatever to 
slaveholders. Fourth, that no such system existed under the patri- 
archal dispensation. Fifth, that slavery never existed under the Jew- 
ish dispensation ; but so far otherwise, that every servant was placed 
under the protection of law, and care taken not only to prevent all 
involuntary servitude, but all voluntary perpetual bondage. Sixth, 
that slavery in America reduces a man to a thing, a " chattel per- 
sonal," robs him of all his rights as a human being, fetters both his 
mind and body, and protects the master in the most unnatural and 
unreasonable power, whilst it throws him out of the protection of law. 
Seventh, that slavery is contrary to the example and precepts of our 
holy and merciful Redeemer, and of his apostles. 

But perhaps you will be ready to query, why appeal to women on 
this subject 1 We do not make the laws which perpetuate slavery. 
JVo legislative power is vested in us ; we can do nothing to over- 
throw the system, even if we wished to do so. To this I reply, I 
know you do not make the laws, but I also know that you are the luires 
and mothers, the sisters and daughters of those who do; and if you really 
suppose you can do nothing to overthrow slavery, you are greatly 
mistaken. You can do much in every way : four things I will name. 
1st. You can read on this subject- 2d. You can pray over tliis sub- 



It 

ject. 3d. You can speak on this subject. 4th. You can act on this 
subject. I have not placed reading before praying because I regard 
it more important, but because, in order to p^•ay aright, we must un- 
derstand what we are praying for ; it is only then we can *' pray with 
the understanding and the spirit also." 

1. Read then on the subject of slavery. Search the Scriptures 
daily, whether the things I have told you are true. Other books and 
papers might be a great help to you in this investigation, but they are 
not necessary, and it is hardly probable that your Committees of Vigil- 
ance will allow you to have any other. The Bible then is the book 
I want you to read in the spirit of inquiry, and the spirit of prayer. 
Even the enemies of Abolitionists, acknowledge that their doctrines 
are drawn from it. In the great mob in Boston, last autumn, when 
the books and papers of the Anti-Slavery Society, were thrown out 
of the windows of their office, one individual laid hold of the Bible 
and was about tossing it out to the crowd, when another reminded 
him that it was the Bible he had in his hand. "0/ 'tis all one,'' he 
replied, and out went the sacred volume, along with the rest. We 
thank him for the acknowledgment. Yes, " i < is all one," for our 
books and papers are mostly commentaries on the Bible, and the 
Declaration. Read the Bible then, it contains the words of Jesus, 
and they are spirit and life. Judge for yourselves whether he sanc- 
tioned such a system of oppression and crime. 

2. Pray over this subject. When you have entered into your 
closets, and shut to the doors, then pray to your father, who seeth in 
secret, that he would open your eyes to see whether slavery is sinful, 
and if it is, that he would enable you to bear a faithful, open and un- 
shrinking testimony against it, and to do whatsoever your hands find 
to do, leaving the consequences entirely to him, who still says to us 
whenever we try to reason away duty from the fear of consequences, 
"What is that to thee, follow thou me." Pray also for the poor slave, 
that he may be kept patient and submissive under his hard lot, until 
God is pleased to open the door of freedom to him without violence 
or bloodshed. Pray too for the master that his heart may be softened, 
and he made willing to acknowledge, as Joseph's brethren did, "Verily 
we are guilty concerning our brother," before he will be compelled to 
add in consequence of Divine judgment, " therefore is all this evil 
come upon us." Pray also for all your brethren and sisters who are 
laboring in the righteous cause of Emancipation in the Northern 
States, England and the world. There is great encouragement for 
prayer in these words of our Lord. " Whatsoever ye shall ask the 
Father in my name, he will gice it to you" — Pray then without ceas- 
ing, in the closet and the social circle. 

3. Speak on this subject. It is through the tongue, the pen, and 
the press, that tmth is principally propagated. Speak then to your 
relatives, your friends, your acquaintances on the subject of slavery ; 
be not afraid if you are conscientiously convinced it is sinful, to say 
so openly, but calmly, and to let your sentiments be known. If you 
are served by the slaves of others, try to ameliorate their couditiou as 

3 



19 

mucK as possible ; never aggravate their faults, and thus add fuel to 
the fire of anther already kindled, in a master and mistress's bosom ; 
remember their extreme ignorance, and consider them as your Hea- 
Tenly Father does the less culpable on this account, even when they 
do wrong things. Discountenance all cruelty to them, all starvation, 
all corporal chastisement ; these may brutalize and bj-eak their spirits, 
but will never bend them to willing, cheerful obedience. If possible, 
see that they are comfortably and seasonably fed, whether in the house 
or the field ; it is unreasonable and cruel to expect slaves to wait for 
their breakfast until eleven o'clock, when they rise at five or six. Do 
all you can, to induce their owners to clothe them well, and to allow 
them many little indulgences which would contribute to their comfort. 
Above all, try to persuade your husband, father, brothers and sons, 
that slavertj is a crime against God and man, and that it is a great sin 
to keep human beings in such abject ignorance ; to deny them the 
privilege of learning to read and write. The Catholics are univer- 
sally condemned, lor denying the Bible to the common people, but, 
slaveholders must 7iot blame them, for they are doing the very same 
thing, and for the very same reason, neither of these systems can 
bear the light which bursts from the pages of that Holy Book. And 
lastly, endeavour to inculcate submission on the part of the slaves, 
but whilst doing this be faithful in pleading the cause of the oppressed. 

" Will you behold unheeding, 

Lite's lioliest feelings crusiied, 
Wiiere tvoman^s heart is bleeding, 

Shall woman^s voice be hushed ?" 

4. Act on this subject. Some of you own slaves yourselves. If 
you believe slavery is .sinful, set tliem at liberty, " undo the heavy 
burdens and let the oppressed go free." If they wish to remain with 
you, pay thi-m vva;j;es, if not, let thein leave you. Should they remain, 
teach them, and have them taught the common branches of an Eng- 
lish education ; they have minds, and those minds ought to be improved. 
So precious a talent as intellect, never was given to be wrapt in a 
napkin and buried in the earth. It is the duti/ of all, as far as they 
can, to improve their own mental faculties, because we are com- 
manded to love God with all our minds, as well as with all our hearts, 
and we commit a great sin, if we forbid or precent that cultivation of 
the mind in others, which woidd enable them to perform this duty. 
Teacli your servants, tlu-n, to read, «fcc., nnd encourage them to believe 
it is their duty to learn, if it were only that they might read the Bible. 

But some of you will say, we can neither free our slaves nor teach 
them to read, for the laws of our state forbid it. Be not surprised 
when I say such wicked laws ous^ht to be no barrier in the way of your 
duty, and I appeal to the Bible to prove this position. What was the 
conduct of Shiprah and Puah, when the king of Egypt issued his cruel 
mandate, with regard to the Hebrew children ? " T/vey feared God, 
and did not as the King of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men 
children alive." And be it remembered, that it was throitgh their faith- 
fulness that Moses was preserved. This great and inmieHiate eman- 
cipator was indebted io -a woman for his spared Ife, and he became 
% blcKsing to tbe whole Jewish aation. Did these women do right 



19 

in disobeying that monarch ? " Thtrefort (soys the eacred text,) Qt% 
dealt well with them, and made them houses" Ex^ i. Wiat was the 
conduct of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when Nebuchadnez- 
zar set up a golden image in the plain of Dura, and commanded all 
people, nations, and languages, to fall down and worship it? "Be it 
known, unto thee, (said these faithful Jews) king, that we will not 
serve thy gods, nor worship the image which thou hast set up." Did 
these men do right in disobeying the law of their sovereign? Let their 
miraculous deliverance from the burning fiery furnace, answer ; Dan. 
iii. What was the conduct of Daniel, when Darius made a firm decree 
that no one should ask a petition of any man or God for thirty days t 
Did the prophet cease to pray? No! "When Daniel knew that the 
writing was signed, he went into his house, and his windows being 
open towards Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a 
day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did afore- 
time." Did Dani 1 do right thus to hreah the law of his king? Let 
his wonderful deliverance out of the mouths of the lions answer ; 
Dan. vii. Look, too, at the Apostles Peter and John. When the 
rulers of the Jews, " commanded them not to speak at all, nor teach 
in the name of Jesus," what did they say ? " Whether it be right in 
the sight of God, to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge 
ye." And what did they do ? " They spake the word of God with 
boldness, and with great power gave the Apostles witness of the rC' 
surredion of the Lord Jpsus ;" although this was the very doctrine, 
for the preaching of which, they had just been cast into prison, and 
further threatened. Did these men do right ? I leave you to answer, 
who now enjoy the benefits of their labors and sufferings, in that 
Gospel they dared to preach when positively commanded not to teach 
any more in the name of Jesus ; Acts iv. 

But some of you may say, if we do free our slaves, they will be 
taken up and sold, therefore there will be no use in doing it. Peter 
and John might just as well have said, we will not preach the gospel, 
for if we do, we shall be taken up and put in prison, therefore there 
will be no use in our preaching. Consequences, my friends, belong no 
more to you, than they did to these apostles. Duty is ours and events 
are God's. If you think slavery is sinful, all you have to do is to set 
your slaves at liberty, do all you can to protect them, and in humble 
faith and fervent prayer, commend them to your common Father. 
He can take care of them ; but if for wise purposes he sees fit to 
allow them to be sold, this will afford you an opportunity of testifying 
openly, wherever you go, against the crime of manstealing. Such 
an act will be clear robbery, and if exposed, might, under the Divine 
direction, do the cause of Emancipation more good, than any thing 
that could happen, for, " He makes even the wrath of man to praise 
him, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain." 

I know that this doctrine of obeying God, rather than man, will b* 
considered as dangerous, and heretical by many, but I am not afraid 
openly to avow it, because it is the doctrine of the Bible ; but I would 
not be understood to advocate resistaace to tu\y law however op- 



presslve, if, in obeying it, I was not obliged to commit sin. If for 
instance, there was a law, whicii imposed imprisonment or a fine 
upon me if I manumitted a slave, I would on no account resist that 
law, I would set the slave free, and then go to prison or suffer the 
penalty. If a law commands me to sin / will break it ; if it calls me 
to suffer, I will let it take its course unresistingly. The doctrine of 
blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, 
whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought 
to have no place among Republicans and Christians. 

But you will perhaps say, sucn a course of conduct would mevita- 
bly expose us to great suffering. Yes ! my christian friends, I be- 
lieve it would, but this will not excuse you or any one else for the 
neglect of duty. If Prophets and Apostles, Martyrs, and Reformers 
had not been willing to suffer for the truth's sake, where would the 
world have been now ? If they had said, we cannot speak the truth, 
we cannot do what we believe is right, because the larvs of our country 
or public opinion are against us, where would our holy religion have 
been now 1 The Prophets were stoned, imprisoned, and killed by 
the Jews. And why 1 Because they exposed and openly rebuked 
public sins ; they opposed public opinion ; had they held their peace, 
they all might have lived in ease and died in favor with a wicked gen- 
eration. Why were the Apostles persecuted from city to city, stoned, 
incarcerated, beaten, and crucified 1 Because they dared to speak the 
truth ; to tell the Jews, boldly and fearlessly, that they were the mur- 
derers of the Lord of Glory, and that, however great a stumbling- 
block the Cross might be to them, there was no other name given 
under heaven by which men could be saved, but the name of Jesus. 
Because they declared, even at Athens, the seat of learning and re 
finement, the self-evident truth, that " they be no gods that are made 
with men's hands," and exposed to the Grecians the foolishness of 
worldly wisdom, and the impossibility of salvation but through Christ, 
whom they despised on account of the ignominious death he died. 
Because at Rome, the proud mistress of the world, they thundered 
out the terrors of the law upon that idolatrous, war-making, and slave- 
holding community. Why were the martyrs stretched upon the 
rack, gibbetted and burnt, the scorn and diversion of a Nero, whilst 
their tarred and burning bodies sent up a light which illuminated the 
Roman capital] Why were the Waldenses hunted like wild beasts 
upon the mountains of Piedmont, and slain with the sword of the 
Duke of Savoy and the proud monarch of France ? Why were the 
Presbyterians chased like the partridge over the highlands of Scot- 
land — the Methodists pumped, and stoned, and pelted with rotten 
eggs — the Quakers incarcerated in filthy prisons, beaten, whipped at 
the cart's tail, banished and hung 1 Because they dared to speak the 
tnitk, to break the unrighteous laius of their country, and chose rather 
to suffer affliction with the people of God, " not accepting deliver- 
ance," even under the gallows. Why were Luther and Calvin per- 
secuted and excommunicated, Craumer, Ridley, and Latimer burnt? 
Bucause they feorles.sly proclaimed the truth, thcn^h that truth wa? 



21 

contrary to public opinion, and the authority of Ecclesiastical coun- 
cils and conventions. Now all this vast amount of human sufTeriiig 
might have been saved. All these Prophets and Apostles, Martyrs, 
and Reformers, might have lived and died in peace with all men, but 
following the example of their great pattern, " they despised the 
shame, endured the cross, and are now set down on the right harvd 
of the throne of God," having received the glorious welcome of" well 
done good and faithful servants, enter ye into the joy of your Lord." 
But you may say we are iooinen, how can our hearts endure perse- 
cution ] And why not ? Have not ivomen arisen in all the dignity 
and strength of moral courage to be the leaders of the people, and to 
bear a faithful testimony for the truth whenever the providence of 
God has called them to do so ? Are there no women in that noble 
army of martyrs who are now singing the song of Moses and the 
Lamb ? Who led out the women of Israel from the house of bon- 
dage, striking the timbrel, and singing the song of deliverance on the 
banks of that sea whose waters stood up like walls of crystal to open 
a passage for their escape ] It was a woman ; Miriam, the prophet- 
ess, the sister of Moses and Aaron. Who went up with Barak to 
Kadesh to fight against Jabin, King of Canaan, into whose hand 
Israel had been sold because of their iniquities ? It was a woman! 
Deborah the wife of Lapidoth, the judge, as well as the prophetess 
of that backsliding people ; Judges iv, 9. Into whose hands was 
Sisera, the captain of Jabin's host delivered ? Into the hand of a 
woman. Jael the wife of Heber ! Judges vi, 21. Who dared to 
speak the truth concerning those judgments which were coming upon 
Judea, when Josiah, alarmed at finding that his people "had not kept 
the word of the Lord to do after all that was written in the book of 
the Law," sent to enquire of the Lord concerning these things 1 It 
was a tooman. Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum ; 2, 
Chron. xxxiv, 22. Who was chosen to deliver the whole Jewish 
nation from that murderous decree of Persia's King, which wicked 
Haman had obtained by calumny and fraud ? It was a woman ; 
Esther the Queen ; yes, weak and trembling \iwman was the instru- 
ment appointed by God, to reverse the bloody mandate of the eastern 
monarch, and save the whole visible church from destruction. What 
human voice first proclaimed to Mary that she should be the mother 
of our Lord ? It was a woman ! Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias ; 
Luke i, 42, 43. Who united with the good old Simeon in giving 
thanks publicly in the temple, when the child, Jesus, was presented 
there by his parents, " and spake of him to all them that looked for 
redemption in Jerusalem ?" It was a ?i'oman/ Anna the prophetess. 
Who first proclaimed Christ as the true Messiah in the streets of Sa- 
maria, once the capital of the ten tribes 1 It was a woman ! Who 
ministeied to the Son of God whilst on earth, a despised and perse- 
cuted Reformer, in the humble garb of a carpenter ? They were 
women ! Who followed the rejected King of Israel, as his fainting 
footsteps trod the road to Calvary ] "A great company of people 
and of women ;" and it is remarkable that to them alonc^ he turned 



and addressed the pathetic language, " Daughters of Jerusalem 
weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children." Ah ! 
who sent unto the Roman Govdnor when he was set down on the 
judo-ment sent, saying unto him, " Have thou nothing to do with that 
just man, for I have suifered many things this day in a dream be- 
cause of him "?" It was a woman ! the wife of Pilate. Although 
" he knew that for envy the Jews had delivered Christ," yet he con- 
sented to surrender the Son of God into the hands of a brutal sol- 
diery, after having himself scourged his naked body. Had the toife of 
Pilate sat upon that judgment seat, what would have been the result 
of the trial of this "just person ?" 

And who last hung round the cross of Jesus on the mountain 
of Golgotha] Who tirst visited the sepulchre early in the morn- 
ing on the first day of the week, carrying sweet spices to embalm his 
precious body, not knowing that it was incorruptible and could not 
be holden by the bands of death 1 These were \iwmen ! To whom 
did ho jlrst ap|)ear after his resurrection 1 It was to a woman ! Mary 
Magdalene ; Mark xvi, 9. Who gathered with the apostles to wait 
at Jerusalem, in prayer and supplication, for " the promise of the 
Father ;" the spiritual blessing of the Great High Priest of his 
Church, who had entered, not into the splendid temple of Solomon, 
there to offer the blood of bulls, and of goats, and the smoking censer 
upon the golden altar, but into Heaven itself, there to present his in- 
tercessions, after having "given himself for us, an offering and a sac- 
rifice to God for a sweet smelling savor?" Women were among that 
holy company ; Acts i, 14. And did women wait, in vain ? Did 
those who had ministered to his necessities, followed in his train, and 
wept at his crucifixion, wait in vain 1 No ! No ! Did the cloven 
tongues of fire descend upon the heads of women as well as men ? 
Yes, my friends, " it sat upon each one of them ;" Acts ii, 3. Wo- 
men as well as men were to be living stones in the temple of grace, 
and therefore their heads were consecrated by the descent of the 
Holy Ghost as well as those of men. Were xvomen recognized as 
fellow laborers in the gospel field 1 They were ! Paul says in his 
epistle to the Philippians, " help those women who labored with me, 
in the gospel ;" Phil, iv, 3. 

But this is not all. Roman women were burnt at the stake, their 
delicate limbs were torn joint from joint by the ferocious beasts of the 
Amphitheatre, and tossed by the wild bull in his fury, for the diversion 
of that idolatrous, warlike, and slaveholding people. Yes, women suf- 
fered under the ten persecutions of heathen Rome, with the most un- 
shrinking constancy and fortitude ; not all the entreaties of friends, 
nor the claims of new born infancy, nor the cruel threats of enemies 
could make them sprinkle one grain of incense upon the altars of Ro- 
man idols. Come now with me to the beautiful valleys of Piedmont 
Wliose blood stains the green sward, and decks the wild flowers with 
colors not their own, and smokes on the sword of persecuting France] 
It is ivo7nan's, as well as man's] Yes, women were accounted as sheep 
for the oluughter, and were cut down as the tender saplings of the wood 



23 

But time would fail me, to tell of all those hundreJs and thousands 
of women, who perished in the Low countries of Holland, when Alva's 
sword of vengeance was unsheatlied against the Protestants, when 
the Catholic Inquisitions of Europe became the merciless execution- 
ers of vindictive wrath, upon those who dared to worship God, instead 
of bowing down in unholy adoration before "my Lord God the Pojoe," 
and when England, too, burnt her Ann Ascoes at the stake of martyr- 
dom. Suttice it to say, that the Church, after having been driven from 
Judea to Rome, and from Rome to Piedmont, and from Piedmont to 
England, and from England to Holland, at last stretched her fainting 
wings over the dark bosom of the Atlantic, and found on the shores 
of a great wilderness, a refuge from tyranny and oppression — as she 
thought, but even here, (the wuim blush of shame mantles my cheek 
as I write it,) even here, woman was beaten and banished,' imprisoned, 
and hung upon the gallows, a trophy to the Cross. 

And what, I would ask in conclusion, have women done for the great 
and glorious cause of Emancipation? Who wrote that pamphlet 
which moved the heart of Wilberforce to pray over the wrongs, and his 
tongue to plead the cause of the oppressed African 1 It was a woman, 
Elizabeth Heyrick. Who labored assiduously to keep the sufferings 
of the slave continually before the British public ? They were ivomen. 
And how did they do it ? By their needles, paint brushes and peil^;, 
by speaking the truth, and petitioning Parliament for the abolition of 
slavery. And what was the effect of their labors ? Read it in the 
Emancipation bill of Great Britain. Read it, in the present state of 
her West India Colonies. Read it, in the impulse which has been 
given to the cause of freedom, in the United States of America. 
Have English women then done so much for the negro, and shall 
American women do nothing I Oh no ! Already are there sixty female 
Anti-Slavery Societies in operation. These are doing just what the 
English women did, telling the story of the colored man's wrongs, 
praying for his deliverance, and presenting bis kneeling image con- 
stantly before the public eye on bags and needle-books, card-racks, 
pen-wipers, pin-cushions, &c. Even the children of the north are in- 
scribing on their handy work, " May the points of our needles prick 
the slaveholder's conscience." Some of the reports of these Societies 
exhibit not only considerable talent, but a deep sense of religious 
duty, and a determination to persevere through evil as well as good 
report, until every scourge, and every shackle, is buried under the 
feet of the manumitted slave. 

The Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society of Boston was called last fall, to a 
severe trial of their faith and constancy. They were mobbed by " the 
gentlemen of property and standing," in that city at their anniversary 
meeting, and their hves were jeoparded by an infuriated crowd ; but 
their conduct on that occasion did credit to our sex, and affords a full 
assurance that they will never abandon the cause of the slave. The 
pamphlet. Right and Wrong in Boston, issued by them in which a 
particular account is given of that " mob of broad cloth in broad day," 
does equai credit to llie head and the heeu-t of her who wrote it. I 



34 

wish my Southern sisters could read it ; they would then understand 
that the women of the North have engaged in this work from a. sense 
of religious duty, and that nothing will ever induce them to take their 
hands from it until it is fully accomplished. They feel no hostility 
to you, no bitterness or wrath ; they rather sympathize in your trials 
and difficulties ; but they well know that the first thing to be done to 
help you, is to pour in the light of truth on your minds, to urge you 
to reflect on, and pray over the subject. This is all they can do for 
you, you must work out your own deliverance with fear and trembling, 
and with the direction and blessing of God, you can do if. Northern 
women may labor to produce a correct public opinion at the North, 
but if Southern women sit down in listless indifference and criminal 
idleness, public opinion cannot be rectified and purified at the South. 
It is manifest to every reflecting mind, that slavery must be abolish- 
ed ; the era in which we live, and the light which is overspreading 
the whole world on this subject, clearly show that the time cannot be 
distant when it will be done. Now there are only two ways in which 
it can be effected, by moral power or physical force, and it is for you 
to choose which of these you prefer. Slavery always has, and always 
will produce insurrections wherever it exists, because it is a violation 
of the natural order of things, and no human power can much longer 
perpetuate it. The opposers of abolitionists fully beHeve this; one of 
them remarked to me not long since, there is no doubt there will be 
a most terrible overturning at the South in a few years, such cruelty 
and wrong, must be visited with Divine vengeance soon. Abolition- 
ists beheve, too, that this must inevitably be the case if you do not 
repent, and they are not willing to leave you to perish without en- 
treating you, to save yourselves from destruction ; well may they say 
with the apostle, " am I then your enemy because I tell you the truth," 
and warn you to flee from impending judgments. 

But why, my dear friends, have I thus been endeavoring to lead you 
through the history of more than three thousand years, and to point 
you to that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before, " from 
works to rewards V Have I been seeking to magnify the sufferings, 
and exalt the character of woman, that she " might have praise of 
men]" No! no! my object has been to arouse you, as the wives 
and mothers, the daughters and sisters, of the South, to a sense of 
your duty as tcomen, and as Christian women, on that great subject, 
which has already shaken our country, from the St. Lawrence and 
the lakes, to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Mississippi to the 
shores of the Atlantic ; and will continue mightily to shake it, until the 
polluted temple of slavery fall and crumble into ruin. I would say 
unto each one of you, "what meanest thou, sleeper! arise and call 
upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us that we perish 
not." Perceive you not that dark cloud of vengeance which hangs 
over our boasting Republic ] Saw you not the lightnings of Hea- 
ven's wrath, in the flame which leaped from the Indian's torch to the 
roof of yonder dwelling, and lighted with its horrid glare the darkness 
of midnight 'i Heard yuu not the thunders of Divine anger, as the dis- 



25 

Lant roar of the cannon came rolling onward, from the Texian coun- 
try, where Protestant American Rebels are fighting witli Mexi(;aii 
Republicans — for what l For the re-establishment of slaver ij ; yes ! 
of American slavery in the bosom of a Catholic Republic, where that 
system of robbery, violence, and wrong, had been legally abolished 
for twelve years. Yes ! citizens of the United States, after piundv'"- 
ing Mexico of her land, are now engaged in deadly conflict, for the 
privilege of fastening chains, and collars, and manacles — upon whom? 
upon the subjects of some foreign prince "? No ! upon native born 
American Republican citizens, although the fathers of these very men 
declared to the whole world, while struggUng to free themselves from 
the three penny taxes of an English king, that they believed it to be 
a self-evident truth that all men were created equal, and had an unalien- 
able right to liberty. 

Well may the poet exclaim in bitter sarcasm, 

" The fustian flag that proudly waves 
In solemn mockery o'er a land of slaves." 

Can you not, my friends, understand the signs of the times ; do you 
not see the sword of retributive justice hanging over the South, or 
are you still slumbering at your posts ? — Are there no Shiphrahn, no 
Puahs among you, who will dare in Christian firmness and Christian 
meekness, to refuse to obey the wicked laws which require woman to 
enslave, to degrade and to brutalize tvoman 1 Are there no Miriams, 
who would rejoice to lead out the captive daughters of the Southern 
States to liberty and light? Are there no Huldahs there who will 
dare to speak the truth concerning the sins of the people and those 
judgments, which it requires no prophet's eye to see, must follow if 
repentance is not speedily sought ? Is there no Esther among you 
who will plead for the poor devoted slave ? Read the history of this 
Persian queen, it is full of instruction ; she at first refused to plead 
for the Jews ; but, hear the words of Mordecai, " Think not within 
thyself, that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all the 
Jews, for if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall 
there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another 
place : but thou and thy fathers house shall he destroyed.^'' Listen, too, 
to her magnanimous reply to this powerful appeal ; "/ will go iii unto 
the king, which is not according to law, and if I perish, I perish." 
Yes ! if there were but one Esther at the South, she might save her 
country from ruin ; but let the Christian women there arise, as the 
Christian women of Great Britain did, in the majesty of moral power, 
and that salvation is certain. Let them embody themselves in so- 
cieties, and send petitions up to their difierent legislatures, enti eating 
their husbands,, fathers, brokers and sons, to abohsh the institution 
of slavery ; no longer to subject woman to the scourge and the chain, 
to mental darkness and moral degradation ; no longer to tear husl)and3 
from their wives, and children from their parents; no longer to n>dke 
men, women, and children, work without wages ; no longer to make 
their lives bitter in hard bondage ; no longer to reduce American citi- 



26 

sens to the abject condition o^ slaves, of "chattels personal;" no longer 
to barter the image of God in human shambles for corruptible things 
such as silver and gold. 

The women of the South can overthrow this horrible system of op- 
pression and cruelty, licentiousness and wrong. Such appeals to 
your legislatures would be irresistible, for there is something in the 
heart of man which will lend under vioral suasion. There is a swift 
witness for truth in his bosom, which loill respond to truth when it is 
uttered with calmness and dignity. If you could obtain but six signa- 
tures to such a petition in only one state, I would say, send up that 
petition, and be not in the least discouraged by the scoffs and jeers 
of the heartless, or the resolution of the house to lay it on the table. 
It will be a great thing if the subject can be introduced into your 
legislatures in any way, even by women, and thexj will be the most 
likely to introduce it there in the best possible manner, as a matter 
of morals and religion, not of expediency or politics. You may 
petition, too, the different ecclesiastical bodies of the slave states. 
Slavery must be attacked with the whole power of truth an-d the 
sword of the spirit. You must take it up on Christian ground, and 
fight against it with Christian weapons, whilst your feet are shod with 
the preparation of the gospel of peace. And you are now loudly 
called upon by the cries of the widow and the orphan, to arise and 
gird yourselves for this great moral conflict,"\vith the whole armour 
of righteousness on the right hand and on the left." 

There is every encouragement for you to labor and pray, my 
friends, because the abolition of slavery as well as its existence, has 
been the theme of prophecy. " Ethiopia (says the Psalmist) shall 
stretch forth her hands unto God." And is she not now doing so? 
Are not the Christian negroes of the south lifting their hands in prayer 
for deliverance, just as the Israelites did when their redemption was 
drawing nigh] Are they not sighing and crying by reason of the 
hard bondage 1 And think you, that He, of whom it was said, " and 
God heard their groaning, and their cry came up unto him by reason 
of the hard bondage," think you that his ear is heavy that he cannot 
noiv hear the cries of his suffering children ? Or that He who raised 
up a Moses, an Aaron, and a Miriam, to bring them up out of the 
land of Egypt from the house of bondage, cannot now, with a high 
hand and a stretched out arm, rid the poor negroes out of the hands 
of their masters 1 Surely you believe that his arm is not shortened 
that he cannot save. And would not such a work of mercy redound 
to his glory ? But another string of the harp of prophecy vibrates to 
the song of deliverance : " But they shall sit every man under his 
vine, and under his fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid ; for the 
mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it." The slave never can 
do this as long as he is a slave ; whilst he is a " chattel personal" he 
can own no property ; but the time is to come when every man is to 
sit under his own vine and his own fig-tree, and no domineering driver, 
or irresponsible master, or irascible mistress, shall make him afraid 
•if the chain or the whip. Hear, too, the sweet tones of another 



27 

string : '* Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be in* 
creased." Slavery is an insurmountable barrier to the increase of 
knowledge in every community where it exists ; slaverij, then, must bt 
abolished before this prediction can be fulfilled. The last chord I shall 
touch, will be this, " They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy 
mountain." 

Slavery, then, must be overthrown be/ore the prophecies can be ac- 
complished, but how are they to be fulliied? Will the wheels of the 
millennial car be rolled onward by miraculous power? No! God 
designs to confer this holy privilege upon woman; it is through their in- 
strumentality that the great and glorious work of reforming the world 
is to be done. And see you not how the mighty engine of moral power 
is dragging in its rear the Bible and peace societies, anti-slavery 
and temperance, sabbath schools, moral reform, and missions 1 
or to adopt another figure, do not these seven philanthropic associa- 
tions compose the beaufiful tints in that bow of promise which spans 
the arch of our moral heaven 1 Who does not believe, that if these 
societies were broken up, their constitutions burnt, and the vast 
machinery with which they are laboring to regenerate mankind was 
stopped, that the black clouds of vengeance would soon burst over 
our world, and every city would witness the tate of the devoted cities 
of the plainl Each one of these societies is walking abroad through 
the earth scattering the seeds of truth over the wide field of our 
world, not with the hundred hands of a Briareus, but with a hundred 
thousand. 

Another encouragement for you to labor, my friends, is, that you 
will have the prayers and co-operation of English and Northern phi- 
lanthropists. You will never bend your knees in supplication at the 
throne of grace for the overthrow of slavery, without meeting there 
the spirits of other Christians, who will mingle their voices with yours, 
as the morning or evening sacrifice ascends to God. Yes, the spirit 
of prayer and of supplication has been poured out upon many, many 
hearts; there are wrestling Jacobs who will not let go of the prophetic 
promises of deliverance for the captive, and the opening of prison doors 
to them that are bound. There are Pauls who are saying, in reference 
to this subject, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" There are 
Marys sitting in the house now, who are ready to arise and go forth 
in this work as soon as the message is brought, " the master is come 
and calleth for thee." And there are Marthas, too, who have already 
gone out to meet Jesus, as he bends his footsteps to their brother's 
grave, and weeps, not over the lifeless body of Lazarus bound hand 
and foot in grave-clothes, but over the politically and intellectually 
lifeless slave, bound hand and foot in the iron chains of oppression and 
ignorance. Some may be ready to say, as Martha did, who seemed 
to expect nothing but sympathy from Jesus, " Lord, by this time he 
stinketh, for he hath been dead four days." She thought it useless 
to remove the stone and expose the loathsome body of her brother ; 
she could not believe that so great a miracle could be wrought, as to 
raise that putrefied body into life ; but " Jesus said, take ye away tao 



Htone ;" and when they had taken away the stone where the dead was 
laid, and uncovered the body of Lazarus, then it was that " Jesua 
iifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard 
me," &c. " And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice? 
Lazarus, come forth," Yes, some may be ready to say of the 
colored race, how can they ever be raised politically and intellectu- 
all -, they have been dead four hundred years'? But ive have nothing 
to do with how this is to be done ; our business is to take away the 
stone which has covered up the dead body of our brother, to expose 
the putrid carcass, to show hoiv that body has been bound with the 
grave-clothes of heathen ignorance, and his face with the napkin of 
prejudice, and having done all it was our duty to do, to stand by 
the negro's grave, in humble faith and holy hope, waiting to hear 
the life-giving command of " Lazarus, come forth." This is just 
what Anti-Slavery Societies are doing ; they are taking away the 
stone from the mouth of the tomb of slavery, where lies the putrid 
carcass of our brother. They want the pure light of heaven to shine 
into that dark and gloomy cave ; they want all men to see how that 
dead body has been bound, hoiv that face has been wrapped in the 
napkin of prejudice ; and shall they wait beside that grave in vain ? 
Is not Jesus still the resurrection and the life 1 Did He come to pro- 
claim liberty to the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them 
that are bound, in vain 1 Did He promise to give beauty for ashes, 
the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit 
of heaviness unto them that mourn in Zion, and will He refuse to 
beautify the mind, anoint the head, and throw around the captive 
negro the mantle of praise for that spirit of heaviness which has so 
long bowed him down to the ground '? Or shall we not rather say 
with the prophet, " the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform thisi" 
Yes, his promises are sure, and amen in Christ Jesus, that he will 
assemble her that halteth, and gather her that is driven out, and her 
that is afflicted. 

But I will now say a few words on the subject of Abolitionism. 
Doubtless you have all heard Anti-Slavery Societies denounced as 
insurrectionary and mischievous, fanatical and dangerous. It has 
been said they publish the most abominable untruths, and that they 
are endeavoriiig to excite rebellions at the South. Have you beheved 
these reports, my friends ? have you also been deceived by these false 
assertions ? Listen to me, then, whilst I endeavor to wipe from the 
fair character of Abohtionism such unfounded accusations. You 
know that / am a Southerner ; you know that my dearest relatives 
are now in a slave Stale. Can you for a moment believe I would 
prove so recreant to the feelings of a daughter and a sister, as to join 
a society which was seeking to overthrow slavery by falsehood, blood- 
shed, and murder? I appeal to you who have known and loved me 
in days that are passed, can you believe it ? No ! my friends. As a 
Carolinian, I was peculiarly jealous of any movements on this subject ; 
and before I would join an Anti-Slavery Society, I took the precau- 



20 

lion of becoming acquainted with some of the leading Abolitionists, 
of reading their publications and attending their meetings, at which I 
heard addresses both from colored and white men ; and it was not 
until I was fully convinced that their piiiicipks were enlirchj pacific, 
and their efforts only moral, that I gave my name as a member to the 
Female Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia. Since that time, I have 
regularly taken tlie Liberator, and read many Anti-Slavery pamphlets 
and papers and books, and can assure you I never have seen a single 
insurrectionary paragraph, and never read any account of cruelty 
which I could not believe. Southerners may deny the truth of these 
accounts, but why do they not prove them to be false. Their violent 
expressions of horror at such accounts being believed, may deceive 
some, but they cannot deceive me, for I lived too long in the midst of 
slavery, not to know what slavery is. Such declarations remind me 
of an assertion made by a Catholic priest, who said that his Church 
had never persecuted Protestants for their religion, when it is well 
known that the pages of history are black with the crimes of the In- 
quisition. Oh ! if the slaves of the South could only write a book, it 
would vie, I have no doubt, with the horrible details of Catholic 
cruelty. When I speak of this system, " I speak that I do know,'" and 
I am not afraid to assert, that Anti-Slavery publications have 7iot over- 
drawn the monstrous features of slavery at all. And many a South- 
erner knows this as well as I do. A lady in North Carolina remarked 
to a friend of mine, about eighteen months since, " Northerners know 
nothing at all about slavery ; they think it is perpetual bondage only ; 
but of the depth of degradation that word involves, they have no con- 
ception ; if they had, they uwuld never cease their efforts until so horrible , 
a system was overthrown." She did not know how faithfully some 
Northern men and Northern women had studied this subject ; how 
diligently they had searched out the cause of " him who had none to 
help him," and how fearlessly they had told the story of the negro's 
wrongs. Yes, Northerners know every thing about slavery now. 
This monster of iniquity has been unveiled to the world, his frightful 
features unmasked, and soon, very soon, will he be regarded with no 
more complacency by the American republic than is the idol of Jug- 
gernaut, rolling its bloody wheels over the crushed bodies of its pros- 
trate victims. 

But you will probably ask, if Anti-Slavery societies are not insur- 
rectionary, why do Northerners tell us they are ? Why, I would ask 
you in return, did Northern senators and Northern representatives 
give their votes, at the last sitting of congress, to the admission of 
Arkansas Territory as a slave state 1 Take those men, one by one, 
and ask them in their parlours, do you approve of slavery f ask them on 
Northern ground, where they will speak the truth, and I doubt not 
every man of them will tell you, no! Why then, I ask, did they give 
their votes to enlarge the mouth of that grave which has already de- 
stroyed its tens of thousands? All our enemies tell us they are as 
nuich anti-slavery as we are. Yes, raj' friends, thousands who are 
helping you to bind the fetters of slavery on the negro, despise you in 
their hearts for doing it ; they rejoice that sudh an institution has not 
been entailed upon them. Why then, I would ask, do they lend you 
their help] I will tell you, " they love the praise of men more than 
the praise of God." The Abolition cause has not yet become so 
popular as to induce them to believe, that by advocating it in con- 
gress, they shall sit still more securely in their seats there, and like 



30 

fht chief rulers in the days of our Saviour, though many believed on 
him, yet they did not confess him, lest they should he put out of the 
itynagogue ; John xii, 42, 43. Or perhaps like Pilate, thinking they 
could prevail nothing, and fearing a tumult, they determined to release 
Barabbas and surrender the just man, the poor innocent slave to be 
stripped of his rights and scourged. In vain will such men try to 
wash their hands, and say, with the Roman governor, " I am inno- 
cent of the blood of this just person." Northern American statesmen 
are no more innocent of the crime of slavery, than Pilate was of the 
murder of Jesus, or Saul of that of Stephen. These are high charges, 
but I appeal to their hearts ; I appeal to pubhc opinion ten years 
from now. Slavery then is a national sin. 

But you will say, a great many other Northerners tell us so, who 
can have no political motives. The interests of the North, you must 
know, my friends, are very closely combined with those of the South. 
The Northern merchants and manufacturers are making their fortunes 
out of the produce of slave labor ; the grocer is selling your rice and 
sugar ; how then can these men bear a testimony against slavery 
without condemning themselves 1 But there is another reason, the 
North is most dreadfully afraid of Amalgamation. She is alarmed 
at the very idea of a thing so monstrous, as she thinks. And lest 
this consequence might flow from emancipation, she is determined to 
resist all efforts at emancipation without expatriation. It is not be- 
cause she approves of slavery, or believes it to be " the corner stone 
of our republic," for she is as much anti-slavery as we are ; but 
amalgamation is too horrible to think of. Now I would ask you, is 
it right, is it generous, to refuse the colored people in this country the 
advantages of education and the privilege, or rather the right, to fol- 
low honest trades and calimgs merely because they are colored? 
The same prejudice exists here against our colored brethren that 
existed against the Gentiles in Judea. Great numbers cannot bear 
the idea of equality, and fearing lest, if they had the same advantages 
we enjoy, they would become as intelligent, as moral, as religious, 
and as respectable and wealthy, they are determined to keep them as 
low as they possibly can. Is this doing as they would be done byl 
Is this loving their neighbor as themselves ? Oh ! that such opposers 
of Abolitionism would put their souls in the stead of the free colored 
man's and obey the apostolic injunction, to " remember them that are 
in bonds as bound with thein.^'' I will leave you to judge whether the 
fear of amalgamation ought to induce men to oppose anti-slavery 
efforts, when they believe slavery to be sinful. Prejudice against 
color, is the most powerful enemy we have to fight with at the North. 

You need not be surprised, then, at all, at what is said against 
Abolitionists by the North, for they are wielding a two-edged sword, 
which even here, cuts through the cords of caste, on the one side, 
and the bonds of interest on the other. They are only sharing the 
|ate of other reformers, abused and reviled whilst they are in the mi- 
jbority ; but they are neither angry nor discouraged by the invective 
which has be^n heaped upon them by slaveholders at the South and 



31 

their apologists at the North. They know that when George Fox 
and William Edmundson were laboring in behalf of the negroes in 
the West Indies in 1671 that the very same slanders were propogated 
against them, which are now circulated against Abolitionists. Al- 
though it was well known that Fox was the founder of a religious 
sect which repudiated all war, and all violence, yet even he was ac- 
cused of "endeavoring to excite the slaves to insurrection and of 
teaching the negroes to cut their master's throats." And these two 
men who had their feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of 
Peace, were actually compelled to draw up a formal declaration that 
they ivere not trying to raise a rebellion in Barbadoes. It is also 
worthy of remark that these Reformers did not at this time see the 
necessity of emancipation under seven years, and their principal 
efforts were exerted to persuade the planters of the necessity of in- 
structing their slaves ; but the slaveholder saw then, just what the 
slaveholder sees now, that an enlightened population never can be a 
slave population, and therefore they passed a law that negroes should 
not even attend the meetings of Friends. Abolitionists know that the 
life of Clarkson was sought by slavetraders, and that even Wilber- 
force was denounced on the floor of Parliament as a fanatic and J 
hypocrite by the present King of England, the very man who, in 1834 
set his seal to that instrument which burst the fetters of eight hundred 
thousand slaves in his West India colonies. They know that the 
first Quaker who bore a faithful testimony against the sin of slavery 
was cut off from religious fellowship with that society. That Quaker 
was a woman. On her deathbed she sent for the committe who dealt 
with her — she told them, the near approach of death had not altered 
her sentiments on the subject of slavery and waving her hand towards 
a very fertile and beautiful portion of coHntry which lay stretched be- 
fore her window, she said with great solemnity, " Friends, the time 
will come when there will not be friends enough in all this district to 
hold one meeting for worship, and this garden will be turned into a 
wilderness." 

The aged friend, who with tears in his eyes, related this interesting 
circumstance to me, remarked, that at that time there were seven 
meetings of friends in that part of Virginia, but that when he was 
there ten years ago, not a single meeting was held, and the country 
was literally a desolation. Soon after her decease, JohnWoolman 
began his labors in our society, and instead of disowning a member 
for testifying against slavery, they have forsixty-two years positively 
forbidden their members to hold slaves. 

Abolitionists understand the slaveholding spirit too well to be sur- 
prised at any thing that has yet happened at the South or the North ; 
they know that the greater the sin is, which is exposed, the more vio- 
lent will be the efforts to blacken the character and impugn the mo- 
tives of those who are engaged in bringing to light the hidden things 
of darkness. They understand the work of Reform too well to be 
driven back by the furious waves of opposition, which are only foam- 
ing out their own shame. They have stood "the world's dread 



83 

laugh," when only twelve men formed the first Anti-Slavery Society 
in Boston in 1831. They have faced and refuted the calumnies ot 
their enemies, and proved themselves to be emphatically j»eace men by 
never resisting the violence of mobs, even when driven by them from 
the temple of God, and dragged by an infuriated crowd through the 
streets of the emporium of New-England, or subjected by slaveholders 
to the pain of corporal punishment. " None of these things move 
them ;" and, by the grace of God, they are determined to persevere 
in this work of faith and labor of love : they mean to pray, and 
preach, and write, and print, until slavery is completely overthrown, 
until Babylon is taken up and cast into the sea, to " be found no 
more at all." They mean to petition Congress year after year, until 
the seat of our government is cleansed from the sinful traffic of 
"slaves and the souls of men." Although that august assembly may 
be like the unjust judge who "feared not God neither regarded man," 
yet it must yield just as he did, from the power of importunity. Like 
the unjust judge. Congress must redress the wrongs of the widow, 
lest by the continual coming up of petitions, it be wearied. This will 
be striking the dagger into the very heart of the monster, and once 
thisdone, he must soon expire. 

Abolitionists have been accused of abusing their Southern brethren. 
Did the prophet Isaiah abuse the Jews when ^e addressed to them 
the cutting reproofs contained in the first chapter of his prophecies, 
and ended by telling them, they would be ashamed of the oaks they 
had desired, and confounded for the garden they had chosen ] Did 
John the Baptist abuse the Jews when he called them " a generation 
of vipers,^'' and warned them " to bring forth fruits meet for repent- 
ance ?" Did Peter abuse the Jews when he toid them they were the 
murderers of the Lord of Glory ? Did Paul abuse the Roman Gov- 
ernor when he reasoned before him of righteousness, temperance, 
and judgment, so as to send conviction home to his guilty heart, and 
cause him to tremble in view of the crimes he was living in? Surely 
not. No man will noxv accuse the prophets and apostles of abuse, 
but what have Abolitionists done more than they? No doubt the 
Jews thought the prophets and apostles in their day, just as harsh 
and uncharitable as slaveholders now, think Abolitionists ; if they 
did not, why did they beat, and stone, and kill them ? 

Great fault has been found with the prints which have been em- 

Eloyed to expose slavery at the North, but my friends, how could this 
e done so effectually in any other way 1 Until the pictures of the 
slave's sufferings were drawn and held up to public gaze, no North- 
erner had any idea of the cruelty of the system, it never entered their 
minds that such abominations could exist in Christian, Republican 
America ; they never suspected that many of the gentlemen and ladies 
who came from the South to spend the summer months in travelling 
among them, were petty tyrants at home. And those who had lived 
at the South, and came to reside at the North, were too ashamed of 
slavery even to speak of it ; the language of their hearts was, " tell it 
not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon ;" they saw no 



S3 

use in uncovering the loathsome body to popular sight, and in hope- 
less despair, wept in secret places over the sins of oppression. To 
such hidden mourners the formation of Anti-Slavery Societies was 
as life from the dead, the first beams of hope which gleamed through 
the dark clouds of despondency and grief. Prints were made use 
of to effect the abolition of the Inquisition in Spain, and Clarkson 
employed them when he was laboring to break up the Slave trade, 
and English Abolitionists used them just as we are now doing. 
They are powerful appeals and have invariably done the work they 
were designed to do, and we cannot consent to abandon the use of 
these until the realilies no longer exist. 

With regard to those white men, who, it was said, did try to raise 
an insurrection in Mississippi a year ago, and who were stated to be 
Abolitionists, none of them were proved to be members of Anti-Sla- 
very Societies, and- it must remain a matter of great doubt whether, 
even they were guilty of the crimes alledged against them, because 
when any community is thrown into such a panic as to inflict Lynch 
law upon accused persons, they cannot be supposed to be capable of 
judging with calmness and impartiality. We know that the papers of 
which the Charleston mail was robbed, were not insurrectionary, and 
that they were not sent to the colored people as was reported, We 
Jcnoio that Amos Dresser was no insurrectionist though he was accused 
of being so, and on this false accusation was publicly whipped in 
Nashville in the midst of a crowd of infuriated slaveholders. Was 
that young man disgraced by this infliction of corporal punishment 1 
No more than was the great apostle of the Gentiles who five times 
received forty stripes, save one. Like him, he might have said, 
"henceforth I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus," for 
it was for the truth^s sake, he suffered, as much as did the Apostle 
Paul. Are Nelson, and Garrett, and Williams, and other Abolition- 
ists who have recently been banished from Missouri, insurrectionists? 
We knoio they are not, whatever slaveholders may choose to call them. 
The spirit which now asperses the character of the Abolitionists, is the 
very same which dressed up the Christians of Spain in the skins of wild 
beasts and pictures of devils when they were led to execution as here- 
tics. Before we condemn individuals, it is necessary, even in a wicked 
community, to accuse them of some crime ; hence, when Jezebel 
wished to compass the death of Naboth, men of Belial were suborned 
to hear false witness against him, and so it was with Stephen, and so 
it ever has been, and ever will be, as long as there is any virtue to 
suffer on the rack, or the gallows. False witnesses must appeal 
against Abolitionists before they can be condemned. 

I will now say a few words on George Thompson's mission to this 
country. This Philanthropist was accused of being a foreign emis- 
sary. Were Lafayette, and Steuben, and De Kalb, and Pulawski, 
foreign emissaries when they came over to America to fight against 
the tories, who preferred submitting to what was termed, " the yoke 
of servitude," rather than bursting the fetters which bound them to the 
mother country 1 They came with carnal weapons to engage in bloody 



34 

conflict against American citizens, and yet, where do tlieir names 
stand on the paged" History. Among the honorable, or the base? 
Thompson came here to war against the giant sin of slavery, not with 
the sword and the pistol, but with the smc^oth stones of oratory taken 
from the pure waters of the river of Truth. His splendid talents 
aiid commanding eloquence rendered him a poweiful coadjutor in the 
Anti-Slavery cause, and in order to neutralize the effects of these 
upon his auditors, and rob the poor slave of the benefits of his labors, 
his character was defamed, his life was sought, and he at last driven 
from our Republic, as a fugitive. But was Thompson disgraced by all 
this mean and contemptible and wicked chicanery and malice? No 
more than was Paul, when in consequence of a vision he had seen at 
Troas, he went over to Macedonia to help the Christians there, and 
was beaten and imprisoned, because he cast out a spirit of divination 
from a young damsel which had brought much gain to her masters. 
Paul was as niu(;h a foreign emissarij in the Roman colony of Philippi, 
as George Thompson was in America, and it was because he was a 
Jew, and taught customs it was not lawful for them to receive or ob- 
serve, being Romans, that the Apostle was thus treated. 

It was said, Thompson was a felon, who had fled to this country to 
escape transportation to New Holland. Look at him now pouring 
the thundering strains of his eloquence, upon crowded audiences in 
Great Britain, and see in this a triumphant vindication of his charac- 
ter. And have the slaveholder, and his obsequious apologist, gained 
any thing by all their violence and falsehood ? No ! for the stone 
which struck Goliath of Gath, had alieady been thrown from the 
sling. The giant of slavery who had so proudly defied the armies 
of the living God, had received his death-blow before he left our 
shores. But what is George Thompson doing there ? Is he not now 
laboring there, as efi'ectually to abolish American slavery as though 
he trod our own soil, and lectured to New York or Boston assem- 
blies ? What is he doing there, but constructing a stupendous dam, 
which will turn the over\\helming tide of public opinion over the 
wheels of that machinery which Abolitionists are working here. He 
is now lecturing to Britons on American Slaverif, to the subjects of a 
King, on the abject condition of the slaves of a Republic. He is tell- 
ing them of that mighty confederacy of petty tyrants which extends 
over thirteen States of our Union. He is telling them of the munifi- 
cent rewards offered by slaveholders, for the heads of the most distin- 
guished advocates for freedom in this country. He is moving the 
British Churches to seud out to the churches of America the most 
solemn appeals, reproving, rebuking, and exhorting them with all 
long suffering and patience to abandon the sin of slavery immediately. 
Where then I ask, will the name of George Thompson stand on the 
page of History ? Among the honorable, or the base ? 

What can I say more, my friends, to induce you to set your hands, 
and heads, and hearts, to this great work of justice and mercy. Per- 
haps you have feared tlie consequences of immediate Eiiiancipation, 
and been frightened by all those dreadful prophecies of rebellion, 



35 

bloodshed and murder, which have been uttered. " Let no man de- 
ceive you ;" they are the predictions of that same " Ijang spirit" which 
spoke through the four hundred prophets of old, to Ahab king of 
Israel, urging him on to destruction. Slavery may produce these 
horrible scenes if it is continued five years longer, but Emancipation 
never ivill, 

I can prove the safety of immediate Emancipation by history. In 
St. Domingo in 1793 six hundred thousand slaves were set free in a 
white population of forty-two thousand. That Island " marched as 
by enchantment towards its ancient splendor, cultivation prospered, 
every day produced perceptible proofs of its progress, and the 
negroes all continued quietly to work on the difTerent plantations, 
until in 1802, France determined to reduce these liberated slaves 
again to bondage. It was at this time that ali those dreadful scenes 
of cruelty occured, which we so often unjustly hear spoken of, as the 
effects of Abolition. They were occasioned not by Emancipation, 
but by the base attempt to fasten the chains of slavery on the limbs 
of liberated slaves. 

In Gaudaloupe eighty-five thousand slaves were freed in a white 
population of thirteen thousand. The same prosperous effects fol- 
lowed manumission here, that had attended it in Hayti, every thing 
was quiet until Buonaparte sent out a fleet to reduce these negroes 
again to slavery, and in 1802 this institution was re-established in 
that Island. In 1834, when Great Britain determined to liberate the 
slaves in her West India colonies, and proposed the apprenticeship 
system ; the planters of Bermuda and Antigua, after having joined 
the other planters in their representations of the bloody consequences 
of Emancipation, in order if possible to hold back the hand which 
was offering the boon of freedom to the poor negro ; as soon as they 
found such falsehoods were utterly disregarded, and Abolition must 
take place, came forward voluntarily, and asked for the compensation 
which was due to them, saying, they preferred immediate emancipation, 
md were not afraid of any insurrection. And how is it with these 
slands now 1 They are decidedly more prosperous than any of those 
n which the apprenticeship system was adopted, and England is now 
rying to abolish that system, so fully convinced is she that immediate 
Emancipation is the safest and the best plan. 

And why not try it in the Southern States, if it never has occasioned 
rebellion ; if not a drop of hlood has ever been shed in consequence 
of it, though it has been so often tried, why should we suppose it 
would produce such disastrous consequences now? "Be not de- 
ceived then, God is not mocked," by such false excuses for not doing 
justly and loving mercy. There is nothing to fear from immediate 
Emancipation, but every thing from the continuance of slavery. 

Sisters in Christ, I have done. As a Southerner, I have felt it was 
my duty to address you. I have endeavoured to set before you the 
exceeding sinfulness of slavery, and to point you to the example of 
those noble women who have been raised up in th& church to effect 
great revolutions, and to suffer for the truth's sake. I have appealed 



36 

to your sympathies as women, to your sense of duty as Christian 
women. I have attempted to vindicate the Abohtionists, to prove the 
entire safety of immediate Emancipation, and to plead the cause of 
the poor and oppressed. I have done — I have sowed the seeds of 
truth, but I well know, that even if an Apollos were to follow in 
my steps to water them, " God onhj can give the increase." To 
Him then who is able to prosper the work of his servant's hand, I 
commend this Appeal in fervent prayer, that as he " hath chosen the 
weak things of the ivorld, to confound the things which are mighty," 
so lie may cause His blessing, to descend and carry conviction to the 
hearts of many Lydias through these speaking pages. Farewell — 
Count me not your " enemy because I have told you the truth," but 
believe me in unfeigned affection. 

Your sympathizing Friend, , 

ANGELINA E. GRIMKE. 

Shrewsbury, N. J., 1836. 



THIRD EDITION. 

Price 6 1-4 cents single. 62 1-2 cents per dozen. $4 per hundred. 



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